Monday, May 11, 2015

An Inaccurate Blogger Shouldn’t Have Power Over Mac ‘N Cheese



By Bethany Mandel
Friday, May 08, 2015

Imagine a world without whimsy, without joy, without the sweet taste of childhood. Whatever it would look like, it certainly wouldn’t be a glowing, slightly neon shade of orange. And, thanks to the anti-science Left, the home of anti-genetically modified food activism and organic everything, it soon won’t be hard to imagine.

When I was a high-school exchange student in Belgium, my host family asked me to make an American meal. My choice, of course, was Kraft Mac and Cheese. They were scared by the cheese packet, by the color and its powdery composition (“n’est pas fromage!”), and refused to eat it.

Remember when that was an option here in America? When people could just choose what they wanted to eat, regardless of its nutritional content? Now, with food activists who have an overzealous fan base, it’s their way or the highway. One particular activist, nicknamed “Food Babe,” has taken away some of America’s best foods. Because of her, the composition of Subway’s bread is altered, and now the Kraft blue-box Mac and Cheese recipe is, as well.

The Food Babe’s Bad Science

What is perhaps the most infuriating aspect of the Food Babe’s activism is the fact that her crusades, which she claims are for our collective good, have no basis in science. She has written nonsensical polemics against microwaves (just for them to disappear down the memory hole). To say she is the Dr. Oz of the food world is being generous—he at least has a degree in medicine. But just as Oz has come under fire for being a snake-oil salesman in a lab coat, so too has the Food Babe, aka Vani Hari.

Gawker published an epic takedown of Hari, written by an analytical chemist, Yvette d’Entremont and the anti-Food Babe, who named herself Science Babe. d’Entremont explained, “Hari’s superhero origin story is that she came down with appendicitis and didn’t accept the explanation that appendicitis just happens sometimes. So she quit her job as a consultant, attended Google University and transformed herself into an uncredentialed expert in everything she admittedly can’t pronounce.”

Two other “natural bloggers” have been in the news of late. Each battled cancer with the same kind of pseudoscience that Hari preaches. One died after seeking radiology treatment at the eleventh hour, while the other admitted she never had cancer at all. One can only wonder who these women influenced and discouraged from seeking treatment. In a Daily Beast dive into the world of Dr. Oz, medical professionals discussed the “Oz effect,” wherein their patients went for the quick fixes instead of established medical science. There’s no telling the damage that’s been done from the “Food Babe effect.”

I’ll Just Make Everyone Do What I Want

Crusades to encourage companies to change their products is very different from buying nutritional products, which Hari also promotes. Hari can, as far as I’m concerned, waste as much time as she wants lobbying for more organic kale at Whole Paycheck—er, Whole Foods. But when Hari takes away my ability to choose how to feed my family, it gets personal. The Left is all about the freedom of choice, though only when it pertains to depriving unborn babies of their own inalienable rights. On everything else, the Left is only comfortable making your choices—both large and small—for you.

If the food police are going to set the menu for Americans, is it so much to ask for them to get it right on the science? Sadly, it probably is. The conventional wisdom on food science is one of the most unstable in the scientific world. We’ve been told butter is good, then that it’s bad, and now that it’s good again. Same with eggs, milk, and fat. The list goes on. In the land of the free, we’re increasingly stuck eating whatever the elites deem acceptable that week. Michelle Obama sets our kids’ lunch menus and the Food Babe has irreconcilably altered our dinner.

Excuse me while I start hoarding Wacky Mac (the kosher version of Kraft’s blue box) before the Food Babe and her minions get to that, too. For those seeking a good old neon-orange dinner in a box, take a stroll down the kosher aisle.

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